FooAtari: It doesn’t really matter what the main use of rFactor is. Fact is ISI do not include any illegal content in their software when you buy the game.Holding them responsible for the content of mods and what people choose to do with their game is a bit like holding the developer of torrents responsible for all the copyright infringement.It’s a completely legal technology. It’s not his fault that it’s main use is for the distribution of copyrighted material.The fact remains that weather the mod is scratch made or not. If it’s based on a real life series it is using copyrighted and trademarked logos without a licence to do so.You can spin it any way you like but it is not legal.What SRW are doing may be questionable.But as others have said it’s very much a case of the pot calling the kettle black when mod groups complain about SRW.Furthermore I have never used SRW but all mods are freely available to download you just pay for faster downloads and online racing. And well surely the fees they charge cover the server costs which do not come for free.As others have said, 99% of this problem between SRW and modders is full of holes and grey areas and NO ONE is completely innocent.

Spot on !

In fact quite liked the way you phrased a few things actually even though I didn’t expect Al Capone to ever crop up in a sim conversation.

For your info I DO speak at lest 2 languages fluently.

Don’t ever tell me that America feeds me mate. Apart from the fact, thats total BS, you really don’t want to get into a discussion with me on the US.

Oh and if you can write posts like that, with pretty good English usage, then you can know how to spell ‘hell’ instead of ‘hella’.

Now let’s not fall out over this. You did spell ‘losers’ correct so thats a big plus. <- note the smiley.

One more thing, I`ll correct anytime I please :)

Holding them responsible for the content of mods and what people choose to do with their game is a bit like holding the developer of torrents responsible for all the copyright infringement. It’s a completely legal technology. It’s not his fault that it’s main use is for the distribution of copyrighted material.

The fact remains that weather the mod is scratch made or not. If it’s based on a real life series it is using copyrighted and trademarked logos without a licence to do so. You can spin it any way you like but it is not legal.

What SRW are doing may be questionable. But as others have said it’s very much a case of the pot calling the kettle black when mod groups complain about SRW. Furthermore I have never used SRW but all mods are freely available to download you just pay for faster downloads and online racing. And well surely the fees they charge cover the server costs which do not come for free.

As others have said, 99% of this problem between SRW and modders is full of holes and grey areas and NO ONE is completely innocent.

English is maybe my fifth language after Portuguese, Italian, French, Spanish which I speak all fluently if I don’t include Chinese to that where I’m right now studying in an University so I don’t really care too much how well I can speak my fifth language falling to sixth now so save your grammar to people who really need it because my head is really full of languages so I do mix up things quite often! You would really understand that if you spoke at least 2 languages fluently !

I really hope you aren’t trying to correct every state in the US, the Aussies, South Africans, etc how to speak like you i would had to say you would be wasting your time and theirs too :) specially in forums and going off topic!
but hey F1Racer I like your comments “most” of the time so what where we discussing about?!

About the invasion thing I really need to read what I’m writing lol but on the same not don’t bite the hands that feeds you i.e. America!

F1Racer: ok just a couple of things there… :)‘Hella’is a company that make auxilliary lighting for cars and other vehicles.
It could also be ‘Hell’ in Italian I guesshehe.The Al Capone reference has to be the weirdest yet, but even so, he did not get done for tax ‘invasion’.Invasion is what the US did to Iraq (then decided to call it a war for some strange reason).
You mean tax evasion
Lastly, ‘clean as crystalline water’….thats such a more scientific approach to the simpler ‘clear as crystal’ saying.I like it :)

‘Hella’ is a company that make auxilliary lighting for cars and other vehicles.
It could also be ‘Hell’ in Italian I guess hehe.

The Al Capone reference has to be the weirdest yet, but even so, he did not get done for tax ‘invasion’. Invasion is what the US did to Iraq (then decided to call it a war for some strange reason).
You mean tax evasion

Lastly, ‘clean as crystalline water’…. thats such a more scientific approach to the simpler ‘clear as crystal’ saying. I like it :)

rFactor is making big money using free labor and unlicensed products that’s the reason why people buy rFactor to play mods i.e. illegal work in 98% of times! How clean is rFactor is very relative specially when they know and every one who play sim games know too that rFactor is just the bridge to illegal wonderland! Remember Al Capone was not sentenced for the hundreds of deaths he was responsible but tax invasion! here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone

I think SRW deciding to join the party is great hella everybody is making money with “free modding” why can’t they? The big losers in this are Simbin and iRacing and ARCA! rFactor is just the old good Napster of sim racing even though it’s my favorite sim by far!

Is rFactor as clean as crystalline water? Of course YES! Are we stupid? Hella NOT!

F1Racer: Very true.But most of the mods we use regularly don’t go for likeness’s. ;)Good point about Brianza though.Look’s like we’re all going to hell.hehe

Chris_CXC_Simulations: (…) Also, how about doing a dedicated story and allowing SRW to comment. Maybe an interview with one of the staff? This way VirtualR can present both sides and let the views decide.

Personally I think that’s a great idea to talk things out to make peace. Come on guys!

SRW can redistribute unlicensed content for profit and ignore the creators rights, if they don’t get sued by an individual doing not-for-profit work that means that it’s legal, oh and ps, if you want to know what the law is, here is a link to wikipedia.

Beautiful.

[dd]Baule: I can’t hear your Robin Hood phrases anymore. Modders who – for example – create a BMW in order to steal that model from BMW to make it accessable for people who don’t want to pay for it… that’s bullshit!I don’t talk about stealing content from simbin games or others, I talk about scratch-made mods or conversions with proper CD/DVD verifications.Well, I guess continuing this discussion doesn’t make any sense…

CD/DVD verifications for what rFactor? How does that compensate Simbin or the trademark holder for IBM or whomever. Simbin paid real money for the licenses for those cars and tracks and now you think a CD/DVD verification for rFactor helps either Simbin or BMW or the track that never got any money at all, because rFactor never licensed it?

You’re simplifying the economics.

You are all upset, that SRW is making money on a mod from a modder, who supposedly isn’t making any money anyway, but you have no problem with rFactor making money on a mod that is unlicensed. It takes money away from Simbin and the license holders, but you don’t seem to care about that.

Additionally, SRW is not charging for the mod. You can use the service as a free member and download the free mod. The premium service is an option and charging for mods isn’t a part of it.

You have double standards. Protect the mod maker, but not Simbin or anyone else. And the mod makers don’t even lose money, because they are supposedly not in it for the money anyway…

FYI, I used the Robin Hood example, because it’s easy to understand.

You don’t seem to understand trademarks and in that sense you are correct, until you do there is no sense for you to continue this discussion.

If you still feel that modders are legally allowed to slap any trademark, logo, car, track, or other intellectual property on their car and/or track without authorization then read these this article on Trademarks from Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark

Good point about Brianza though. Look’s like we’re all going to hell. hehe

F1Racer: The tools can equally be used to create fantasy cars and tracks in the same way that ISI did with the original content

The later tracks ISI released such as Brianza are interesting. They are clearly real life tracks – just they don’t use the real name. Is it significant that they were free downloads?

The unlicensed Mercedes in Simbin’s STCC is also 95% a Mercedes in terms of modelling.

It would be interesting to know just exactly what is covered by licensing. Clearly the name is, but it does seem you can sail very close to the wind in terms of likeness.

I don’t talk about stealing content from simbin games or others, I talk about scratch-made mods or conversions with proper CD/DVD verifications.

Well, I guess continuing this discussion doesn’t make any sense…

F1Racer:
The tools can equally be used to create fantasy cars and tracks in the same way that ISI did with the original content.

Great point. Modders could create fantasy mods of cars and tracks, but who wants that… Boring. You need the value stored in the unlicensed content to make your mods popular.

Yeah, unlicensed value… ;-)

BMW, Ferrari, Audi, Porsche, Mid-Ohio, LeMans, Nurburgring, Spa, Indianapolis, Castrol, Rolex, Benneton, etc….

All these licenses have value. Fantasy cars and tracks with no sponsor names or logos are flat out boring. Mod makers aren’t paying for the value in the licenses/copyrights of the cars and tracks etc, that they create/copy.

That’s fundamentally why I have little patience for their bitching about SRW. No ones hands are clean. Why should I care? It’s comical.

Lincoln Miner:
ISI’s mod tools do one thing and one thing only.Create unlicensed racing content.

I think you’d be hard pushed to get them to admit to that.
The tools can equally be used to create fantasy cars and tracks in the same way that ISI did with the original content.
What modders do with the tools is not ISI’s responsibility.
Of course ISI knows as well as we all do that unlicenced mods are going to happen, but what do they then do ? Not produce rF because of that consequence ?

F1Racer:
ISI are completely clean in this.They made a moddable platform but they didn’t make any of the mods.All of their content is totally legit.
Questioning ISI’s legality wouldbe like arresting the guy at the gun shop because he sold you a gun that you killed someone with.

You’re absolutely correct, but F1′s point is very very good. ISI knows exactly what they are doing. At some point all they need to make is a physics engine and the tools for mod makers, who’ll create their content. It’s like having a bunch of unpaid employees who can create illegal content and you can’t be touched legally.

We just supplied the ability to create an unlicensed BMW to run on an unlicensed track and use the unlicensed F1 trademarks etc. I had no idea a mod maker would actually create one…

Yeah, right. It’s a bit different than a gun or a paint program or a word processor. ISI’s mod tools do one thing and one thing only. Create unlicensed racing content.

Mods are great, but they aren’t without victims and it bugs me that some people put these mod makers on a pedestal and think they are completely innocent and can do no wrong, but SRW is somehow evil. Neither’s hands are clean here and there is plenty of gray area to go around.

And on a related note, for many iRacing, who licenses every single piece of content legally is the evil one. The interweb. It never changes.

felipe: I know many guys who wouldn’t buy GTR 2 or Race On or any other game in fact because they get everything converted to rFactor so it’s absolutely true modding is illegal but hey I love it! The problem is most modders specially new comers don’t realize that and try to play by rules they aren’t allowed to!ISI makes money with rFactor because people buy rFactor to play mods! I wonder how legal is ISI in this too when they release a game with few cars and track but know it will sell well because modders will make money for them!

You nailed it.

And the reason the modders haven’t challenged SRW in court is because they’re already illegally infringing on the licenses and copyrights of the car manufacturers, tracks or others.

Many modders use the same product names, tracks etc that Simbin is paying when they release a game. Tell me that’s not dirty pool. Simbin loses. The products don’t get paid either.

Those mods wouldn’t be quite so exciting if they had ZERO product names. ZERO real tracks and ZERO real cars now would they.

The mod community is in the gray area of things like torrents and Napster. Distributing content that they don’t own. Yeah, they built it and yeah it’s free, so if you appreciate the Robin Hood kind of mentality then you’ll defend the modders to the bitter end, but if their case ever went to court they’d owe money for their mods to car manufacturers, tracks, products etc. Not to mention the revenue they stole from Simbin and others, because of the “free” mods.

Now SRW comes along and distributes their “free” mods and it’s GASP that’s not right! Well, then what do you say about the money mod makers owe to Simbin etc for taking revenue from them by giving away free mods. Those mods wouldn’t be quite so exciting if they had ZERO product names. ZERO real tracks and ZERO real cars now would they….????

felipe: I wonder how legal is ISI in this too when they release a game with few cars and track but know it will sell well because modders will make money for them!

ISI are completely clean in this. They made a moddable platform but they didn’t make any of the mods. All of their content is totally legit.
Questioning ISI’s legality wouldbe like arresting the guy at the gun shop because he sold you a gun that you killed someone with.

ISI makes money with rFactor because people buy rFactor to play mods! I wonder how legal is ISI in this too when they release a game with few cars and track but know it will sell well because modders will make money for them!

captain_underpants: I’m not defending SRW. What I’m saying is that there’s unscrupulous bastards around, and it’s up to the modders to protect themselves and their rights, if they have any, against such people. Maybe merely asking for SRW to remove mods doesn’t have the requisite legal weight, I don’t know, but you can be sure if SRW can find a loophole to exploit, and keep those mods up on the site, they will.The whole modding thing seems to be a fairly confusing area, legally speaking. Just how many rights do modders have over a ‘creation’ that has been derived from other businesses intellectual property? It seems logical that all the hours of work that modders put in should count for something, but does it really in legal terms? Has this ever been tested?Don’t get me wrong, I love the whole modding scene, and think games developers ignore the modding community at their peril. I just think that perhaps they shouldn’t start wailing too loudly about their ‘rights’ lest they discover they don’t actually have any. Or, if they do, that they get them down in writing BEFORE people like SRW start exploiting them.

There ya go, what he said ! You’re exactly right there mate and I don’t see how any of that post can be argued against.

stabiz: I regret even joining this discussion. F1Racer and Lincoln seems to be a good fit though.

Heh, sorry for having a different opinion to yours, m8.